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"A Great Third Party"

Prelude

In our timeline many people in Britain and in fact around the world have accepted the fact that the United Kingdom was one of the only places in Europe that didn’t fall to both the far left and the far right. People view Britain as a bastion of fairness, equality and the right to have your say. Though of course this view isn’t completely true, with well-known politicians failing to do as they promised such as Stanley Baldwin and his promise to try and increase cheaper trade within the British Empire, to politicians denying possible ways out of the depression because they seemed to socialist as Philip Snowden did. Even the most famous British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill saying that the government should use machine guns on the strikers during the General Strike of 1926. But through all this Britain came out well, and so seemed to be the only ‘sane’ nation left in Europe it seemed during the 30’s. With the Nazis in Germany taking hold of the German government in 1933, Italy invading Abyssinia in 1935 and the Paris riots in 1934 along with other madness on the continent that involved both the far right and far left. Though Britain managed to largely avoid this apart from the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 in which a group of fascists paraded through London’s East End and ended up in a brawl between the Jews, workers etc. of the area and the thugs of the British Union of Fascists (ran by Oswald Mosley) fighting back (though thankfully there were no deaths, just injuries). But what if some mature, less thug-ish politicians got involved? Ones who didn’t simply run a party on Anti-Semitism or Anti-Communism? What if some older and more experienced politicians merged the mid-far right parties and ended up with a slightly radical party in Britain? This is my interpretation of how this would turn out for the nation.​
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June, 1918: In the constituency of Clapham a by-election is held and three candidates stand. Among them are John Battley for the ILP, Harry Greer for the Conservatives and Harry Beamish as an independent. Harry Beamish won the by-election with a majority of just 29.

December, 1918: After the results of the 1918 General Election there are 6 National Party MPs elected[1]. Some of these include Sir Richard Cooper (Walsall), Henry Croft (Bournemouth), Captain Gordon Aston (Paddington North) and Harry Beamish (Clapham). In Hackney South an independent by the name of Horatio Bottomley is elected as an MP again. Also 3 days after the General Election 2 MPs crossed over to the National Party - Edward FitzRoy (Daventry) and Alan Burgoyne (Kensington North)[2].

1919: Horatio Bottomley creates the 'People's League' that he hopes will become "a great Third Party" which would represent "the People".

1920: Horatio Bottomley goes onto create the 'Independent Parliamentary Group' to complement the league. He stood George Makgill in East Leyton though Makgill failed to win the by-election. By the end of 1920 and early 1921 the group contained the following MPs: Cecil Beck, Christopher Lowther, Claude Lowther, Charles Frederick Palmer and Sir C. V. F. Townshend

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[1] - The Primary POD in this TL.
[2] - Result of the National Party being more successful.
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